SolarCity brings solar leasing to Northeast

SolarCity is acquiring the East Coast’s largest residential solar installer and is expanding to serve Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The company will acquire the residential solar installation division of groSolar, and bring its popular solar lease to the Northeastern United States.

While solar leasing is already available in some parts of Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, it’s a new option in New York, which, according to SolarChargedDriving.Com’s list of states with solar leasing, will become the 12th in the U.S. in which consumers can go solar with little to no money down when SolarCity begins offering its solar lease in limited areas of the state in March.

SolarCity, already the nation’s largest solar service provider by project volume, now maintains the largest residential solar installation footprint in the nation with 21 local operations centers in 10 states. groSolar will continue its nationwide solar distribution and large commercial solar project development businesses.

“We expect thousands of additional homeowners in the Northeastern states to go solar this year,” said Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity.

Solar lease to arrive in March
SolarCity will make SolarLease and solar purchase options available to homeowners and businesses in the new service areas in early March, and will roll out energy efficiency services later in the year.

SolarCity will initially serve customers located within an approximately 100-mile radius of its new operations centers in Billerica and Raynham, Mass.; Broomall, Pa. (from which it will serve parts of New Jersey); Albany, N.Y.; and Jessup, Md. (expanding the area served by the existing location in Silver Spring, Md). The company expects to expand further within those regions this year.

SolarLease makes it possible for many homeowners and businesses to install solar with no upfront cost and start saving money from day one, because they frequently pay less for solar than they previously paid for electricity.

SolarCity’s full-service solar lease has been the most popular solar financing option in the western United States for the last three years. More than 80 percent of SolarCity’s customers have chosen SolarLease since its launch in April 2008.

About The Author

Christof Demont-Heinrich is founder, creator and editor of SolarChargedDriving.Com, which he launched in September 2009. A journalism professor at the University of Denver (DU), Demont-Heinrich is a lifelong environmentalist who loves to bird, hike, camp, and bike. As passionate as he is about the environment -- and about promoting the synergy between solar power and electric cars, he is equally passionate about writing.